The Flamin Groovies
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The Flamin Groovies were an American rock music band of the 1960s and '70s. They began in San Francisco in 1965, founded by Cyril Jordan and Roy A. Loney. The Flamin Groovies' early recordings reveal a debt to the Lovin' Spoonful. Their first album, 1969's Supersnazz, was marred by somewhat antiseptic production, and stylistically was something of a mixed bag, containing as it did both re-creations of 1950s rock and roll and more melodic, somewhat rueful songs that anticipated the power pop movement of the 1970s--a genre to which the Flamin Groovies would eventually contribute significant work.
Their second album, 1970's Flamingo, was a considerably stronger effort and revealed a band with a sly sense of humor and a musical approach that continued to draw upon '50s rock and roll as well as upon the work of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Flamingo is notable as well as the only album by the group to feature an apostrophe after "Flamin" (all the others are credited to "The Flamin Groovies").
In 1971 Roy Loney left the Flamin Groovies, and was replaced by singer and guitarist Chris Wilson, who, along with Jordan, began to move the group in a more overtly power-pop direction. Working in England with producer Dave Edmunds, they recorded an album entitled Shake Some Action. This LP and the following effort, Now, are good examples of their somewhat self-conscious attempt to revive the sound of the classic mid-'60s pop groups; the song "Shake Some Action" is perhaps their best-known and most emblematic recording. As Cyril Jordan told an interviewer, "The time that we were personifying had died in America years before. We were trying to put it into a capsule."
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY:
Supersnazz (1969)
Flamingo (1970)
Teenage Head (1971)
Shake Some Action (1976)
Now (1978)
Jumpin' in the Night (1979)
Groovies Greatest Grooves (1989)